


For a Place to Sleep

by mbeth



Category: Original Work
Genre: 18th Century, Doctors & Physicians, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mild S&M, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-19
Updated: 2015-03-04
Packaged: 2018-03-13 17:54:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3390800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mbeth/pseuds/mbeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the early 18th century, a young doctor finds himself between jobs in Denmark. He finds trouble, lust, and adventure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like a super silly person. My boyfriend and I have a bet that I can make him blush with a fanfiction written about him (Nicholas) and a local swordsman we know. Game on, boyfriend, game on.
> 
> So yeah, totally artistic license of a fanfiction about real people I know.... I sort of hate myself.

“Just a little rich boy trying to buy passage,” the man’s single eye stared down at the coin in the young man’s hand as he shouted behind him to the captain, mockingly.

“No, actually.”

“So you’re not trying to buy passage?” The hoary and worn voice of the older man cut him off with a crooked and toothless grin. “I can see you’re rich from your shoes.”

“My name is Nicholas Roter,” the coins jingled as he slipped them back into his coat. “I arrived from Geneva this morning, please. I was sent here because a position opened as acting physician on this ship.” Nicholas looked past the man and to the docks. There were more ships than he’d ever seen. “Well one of them, anyway.”

The man sniffed back a line of cold liquid that began to drip from his nostril. “That ship is docked, unloading, and loading until next month. Come back then, little rich boy.”

Nicholas turned on the heel of his boot and stepped over the openly spaced planks of the dock back to his horse. He twisted his delicate, uncallused fingers around her reins, stroking her mane with this other hand, and walked towards the tree line.

Once the ships were out of sight and lost behind the forest leaves, Nicholas climbed up on the saddle. “Lilah, can you believe that man?” he mumbled into her upright ear. “Disgusting. Purely disgusting. I’m surprised he didn’t rob us.” The latter he mumbled mostly to himself.

As they moved further on the dusty path, the sound of moving water piqued Nicholas. “What do you say; are you thirsty, girl?” Lilah raised her snout around excitedly and trotted off the path into the water’s direction.

There was a small clearing around a swell of a creek where the shore ballooned out a bit further. On the other side was a man and his own horse, on which he was struggling mount.

Nicholas dismounted and motioned for Lilah to stay on this side of the water.

“Are you alright, sir?”

The man was large and he kept his face down. He struggled again to climb to his saddle, but this time fell with a flinch.

Nicholas rushed across a shallow and rocky portion of the creek and extended his arms to lift the man up.

The man pushed Nicholas away and looked up at him with a sincere smile. “I’m fine.” His smile widened. “Really.”

“What’s that on your leg then?” Nicholas stammered, trying to keep his focus on the large wound on the man’s inner thigh and not on his inappropriate grin. “Do you mind if I look at it?”

“You are looking at it.” The man’s smile never dropped, even when wincing as he stood. His canine tooth showed, but only on one side. He was handsome. Quite handsome. And standing, he was a great deal taller than Nicholas.

“If you sit down,” Nicholas motioned towards the sack on Lilah’s saddle frantically, “I have things to patch that up.”

The man’s lips began to part in protest.

“Don’t say you’ll be fine. Please don’t.” Nicholas interrupted and sat the man down as he turned back to retrieve his case.

The dark sage fabric of the man’s trousers was already torn open around the laceration. It was a solid cut. Nicholas threaded a hooked needle by the light of the reflective surface of water.

“It’s not like sewing.” Nicholas looked up at him in a sharp turn of his head. “You’d think it would be like sewing.”

The man laughed nervously. His voice was low. “You don’t have vodka in there, by any chance?”

Nicholas let out a dismissive sigh and stretched the fabric away from the wound, running water over the skin and washing the blood away in transparent pink. The needle buried itself deep into the meat of his thigh.

“Casper, by the way,” he made a discomforted sound that paraded as an unsettled laugh. He waited for an introduction as Nicholas leaned in closer, kneeled between his legs, and concentrated. “You are,” Casper waited again, as Nicholas tied off the third stitch, “who, exactly?”

“I’m sorry. Nicholas Roter.” He heard the impatience in Casper’s voice. “Dr. Nicholas Roter, actually. I just arrived from the University of Geneva. I studied – “

Casper interrupted him and smiled in an insincere, almost teeth-baring way. “You seem awfully fascinating, Nicholas, but perhaps your life story could wait? Another time?”

“Certainly,” Nicholas nodded, his red hair falling loose from the pomade.

Nicholas tied the remaining eight sutures in, according to him, unbearable silence. He wrapped gauze around Casper’s muscular leg in more silence. As he leaned Casper against his horse, Nicholas was all but afraid to speak.

Casper cleared his throat. “Since you’ve helped thus far, would you mind helping me walk him back to my stables?” He landed the large flat of his palm on his horse’s back

Casper had a kind face with a surprisingly feminine jawline and a stern mouth. That is, until he smiled. His eyes were narrow and colored like wheat fields. They were very close in hue to his hair. Wheat hair and wheat eyes.

“Absolutely.” Nicholas gathered the reins of both horses, making sure not to move too quickly so Casper kept his balance.

Nicholas looked back at Casper, who was trying to hide a limp by leaning against the rump of his horse as they walked. Failing to stay as formal as he initially expected, Nicholas blurted out, “I can pay you to keep Lilah. She has nowhere to go and you have a stable. And I have nowhere to go. And I could keep an eye on your leg.”

Nicholas waved his hands around as he rambled; it amused Casper. “If you promise that you’ll calm down,” Casper agreed. “And I will not accept payment. You’ve helped me; I can help you.”

The pace slowed to a small pause as Nicholas turned and smiled a ‘thank you’. His blue eyes and the corners of his lips came to an apex on his cheeks and his ears pinned back.

The stable was small and connected to a square hut with two rooms. It was quaint, but no one needed more space. Casper shooed the horses to their stalls and asked Nicholas to put out their hay as he walked inside. 

When Nicholas followed into the house, Casper was pulling quilts onto a table in the larger, main room. Casper stopped and looked up at Nicholas. “Here,” he said as he flipped him a coin, “for helping me.” Casper moved back to pulling blankets on the table, “even though I would have gotten home on my own.” His grin said that even he knew otherwise.

Nicholas fingered the coin. It was so different from the money in Switzerland. He went to put it with the coins in his pocket, then switched the coin to the other hand and placed it in the opposite pocket alone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steaming up!

Her dark hair fell around their faces like a curtain shutting away everything except the way their tongues danced together. Nicholas could feel the laugh tugging on the corners of her velvet lips.

She sat back on her heels still moving her hips in circles. As she did, her small breasts swayed, never changing their upward position. She took his hand, covering the back of his fingers with hers and placed them to her chest languidly.

Nicholas smiled up at her dark eyes that were like pools of night water, fluid and changing, mysterious. “Emmeline,” he sighed, shaping her breasts to the palm of his hand. His other hand moved to her waist. He gripped her haunches tightly and the rosy skin under his fingers pressed into a white.

Emmeline hummed a sweet and low note as she moved against him. Her eyes were watching window listlessly, focusing on the way her body moved and felt.

Nicholas thrust under her, bouncing her hair and causing her skin to softly ripple. She was slender, almost too slender, and boyish of figure. She was exquisite.  
Tightly knitting his brows, Nicholas let out a sound and exhaled sharply. Emmeline slowed her pace and rolled to his side, staring at the profile of his face. “Mon Nicholas,” she ran her slender finger down the very straight length of his very narrow nose and tapped on his lips.

*

He turned towards her and awoke to see a large grey canine sleeping next to him. One arm wrapped around it’s outstretched legs.

Nicholas startled with a nervous sounding breath as Casper laughed. “He never gets blankets so he was excited to sleep here last night.” Casper moved better this morning, still not graceful, but much better. As he sat down carefully on the table next to Nicholas, the quilts pulled under his weight. His rough hand landed on the dog’s curly fur, dust flying away as his fingers tangled in the locks.

The movement of Casper’s rough hands drew at the fabric around Nicholas’ body. The quilt softly tugged at the firmness in his lap and, though he would never admit, sent shivers through his skin.

“You don’t like dogs?” Casper asked, moving his hand over the animal in a less purposeful way.

“I’m used to cats.” Nicholas mumbled, straightening his hair and shielding the unruly measure of his body as he sat up.

A hum sounded in Casper’s throat as his face drew to a thoughtful expression. “You came from the docks, so I suppose that is true. I never cared for cats.”

Casper stood with difficulty but only a small, pained sound was drawn from his thin lips as he moved further into the room.

Nicholas smelled the fabric at his shoulder and realized its scent was salt and mildew which, apart from the direction, gave hint to where he had arrived from.

"I didn't arrive by ship. I rode here." As he stood, he gathered the tail of his linen shirt, tucked it between his navel and hipbone, tightened the ties of his trousers, slumped, and tried to conceal the tension raging through his body. 

"But you were at the docks, yes?" Casper barely turned his face to Nicholas, his firm profile in sharp relief to the sunlight outside. 

"Yes," as Nicholas took quick strides to stand behind Casper, he sighed. "I tried to explain yesterday, but you wouldn't have it."

"Time and place," Casper's tone was brief but nonchalant. "And besides, we must be friends now, yes?" He turned his face slightly more towards Nicholas, the crooked side of his smile just visible. "Come help."

Nicholas followed hurriedly, each step of Casper's equaling two of his own, even with the slight drag currently in Casper's stride. There was about a head's difference in their height, which accounted for the contrast in pace.

“Just around through there,” Casper pointed past Lilah in the stables to a wall strung heavily with rope. As Nicholas placed his hand on each piece of equipment, he looked over his shoulder back to Casper who nodded slightly in instruction. “And the pail, too; bring that as well.”

Nicholas dropped the rope in the pail, swung it up his arm, and carried the boards in his delicate and gentle hands. The only thing Casper took from him was the rope.

Laughing shallowly, Nicholas shifted the weight of the stock in his hands. “What are we doing?” 

“We are boarding up the window.” Casper tossed the rope at his feet and stood examining the side of his quarters. There were jutting handles surrounding the window where the shutters were to be bound. It seemed simple enough.

“What is the bucket for?” Nicholas chewed his thumb nail complacently.

Casper’s brow furrowed as he looked back at Nicholas. “That’s right,” his honey eyes rolled cynically, “Geneva.” He sighed deeply. While his chest was filled with air he looked impossibly large and insufferably strong. “It is to catch the water. You didn’t see to do that in Geneva?” Casper’s question was more a statement tonally and quite sarcastic.

Nicholas was put off by the comment but he tethered the boards to the window as he was asked. He placed the bucket next to the building, as he was asked. He carried the remaining rope back inside, as he was asked. Casper just stood back, grinning a diminutive smirk. 

The rain began a few moments later, Nicholas shoved to sit at the corner of his sleeping arrangements by the dog. His hand strayed a few times, thinking to stroke the animal, only to wrap back around his narrow frame for warmth. An open knit blanket hung on his shoulders, trimming his body in faded blue string. Nicholas couldn’t imagine whose blanket it might have been. It was too small for Casper and, honestly, too small for the dog as well. It was only large enough to swing from the outer points of Nicholas’ collar bones and drip down his arms a bit. It was warmer than nothing.

He watched the rain trickle onto the sill, through the boards he had placed. The shutters did help, especially against the wind, but it was like cupping sand in your fingers; it always gets through eventually. Nicholas’ crystal eyes wandered through the wooden cracks of the house, colors seeping through everywhere. In this lighting, there was a very visible slit to Casper’s bed. It was backlit and he could see the light dancing on skin like oil. He didn’t know what exactly he was looking at, but he could see the bending of musculature, the shine of darkened skin, the lustrous stretch of scar tissue.

And then amber eyes, looking directly back at him through the gap. Nicholas startled. He tried to look away quickly but couldn’t break his glance.

“Do you want to look?” Casper’s voice was low and surprisingly unshaken. He twisted his face at the fissure to see Nicholas more clearly.

“No.” Nicholas exhaled the word, letting it fully leave his body as quickly as the question came to mind.

“The skin feels a bit tight. Can you do something about that?” Casper came to the threshold, his shirt unbuttoned to his sternum and pulled up at one side of his pelvis. He lightly touched the gash on his thigh. “I don’t think it’s infected.”

The wideness of Nicholas’ eyes subdued as his unease fell away. “Your leg. Do I want to look at your leg.” He rubbed at the tension between his eyes, fingers caressing the top of his very straight nose. “Of course I want to look at your leg. Sit down.”


End file.
